New MSN Search is Live

[a389951l]

I don't see the beta tag anymore when I search on MSN and the results are pretty close to what the beta results were showing.

Nice! :)

[NewComputer]

It has been live for almost a week... I have seen a little fluctuation in results, but nearly the same day to day...

[brainmass]

I'm happy with the new MSN, now I'm waiting for the billion dollar advertising budged I hope MS will throw at it :)

[iShopHQ]

Talked with a gyu from MIcrosoft last week - he said Feb 1 was the official date when 100% of MSN results would be from MSN search.

On the plate? MSN's own PPC engine, though all I could ge tfrom him was a 'sometime next year'.

In the MSN search, teh top three resutls are already MSN served links - only the right hand PPC links are Overture. You can buy right now for top three PPC placement on MSN, but it's a first come first served basis. Cost is 'market rate' for whatever key terms you want, it beinf MSN that decides what market rate is.

[schlottke]

Which top three results are paid, the boxed ones? or are you saying the top 3 organic results are?

[smindsrt]

Here is a good link to the official announcement http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/31/364278.aspx?Pending=true

[Infiniterb]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B72E4FEF4%2DE31B%2D4481%2D82E0%2DE0650A001878%7D

[melfan]

couples of my sites was been dropped too but still manage to cling into good positions.

[payoutwindow]

Looks like Microsoft has delivered on time for a change.

[SportsOutlaw]

Glad to finally see this as the official engine for MSN now. (mainly because my keywords rank so much higher with the new search)

Now if only google would recognize. (well, maybe they have, I had an increase in google for a major keyword phrase, moving up from 40 something, to 29 which puts me on the third page, all overnight)

of course, on the other hand, I have been completely blasted out of the system by yahoo it seems since last night. :(

[dejaone]

some of my keywords rank well on new msn. I've noticed traffic increase from msn.

[Spacen]

I have noticed a big increase today in traffic. I'll have to do an analysis of my logs tomorrow to see if it's all coming from MSN but I think it's too much of a coincidence to dismiss. I'm #1 for my major keywords in the beta (now live). I have been on page 1 of google for a month or so now and page 2 of yahoo.

Looks like I'm pretty high for almost all of my keywords in MSN, not just my main targeted ones like in google and yahoo. I think that's where all my new traffic is coming from. It's hard for me to determine what I have done to cause the increases because my traffic has tripled from month to month.

[eduardomaio]

Yes, MSN is driving more traffic since it went public/live. More traffic, more competition... We win, searchers win!

[Las Vegas Homes]

I am happy MSN went live, now maybe we will see a quicker death to Google or Google will be forced to change. IMHO MSN has a better relevancy ratio at least for real estate than Google does. Long live MSN and the brain power behind it. If any Googlers are reading this, I hear MSN is looking to hire donut runners for the real engineers. I just had to say that :D

[Help Desk]

Wow, it's easy to get into the SERPs on MSN, that's for sure.

[mopacfan]

I am happy msn went live, now maybe we will see a quicker death to Google or Google will be forced to change. IMHO msn has a better relevancy ratio at least for real estate than Google does. Long live msn and the brain power behind it. If any Googlers are reading this, I hear msn is looking to hire donut runners for the real engineers.
I'm not a champion of Google, but until G came along, I could not figure out how to monitize my website. Now I'm making some very good income from it. I know that's not what this thread is about per se, but in General, G is heads and shoulders above the rest, including msn. I don't care how much traffic they generate, or how high my sites are in the serps. As long as I'm high up in G, I'll be high up in Y and msn. I hate anything microsoft, and I especially hate portals. msn will always be crap compared to real search and I don't see the folks over at G resting on thier laurels. When the new G browser comes around, msn will just tank further.

[melfan]

Im also seeing substantial increas on traffic from MSN. This is a good sign. Now I can minimize my PPC advertising. :)

[Spacen]

I analyzed my log files this morning. Not as much of the new traffic is coming from MSN as I thought it was but I am finding that I am ranking very high and getting referrals for keywords I haven't even targeted.

I've also experienced a rapid rise for keywords that I have only very recently targeted. I'm still no where in the SERPs for these keywords in google and yahoo.

[mopacfan]

Now this is just for today and yesterday, but the results are pretty stark. G just blows out the competition and we rank #1 for our primary kw on every SE.

[Las Vegas Homes]

I'm not a champion of Google, but until G came along, I could not figure out how to monitize my website. Now I'm making some very good income from it. I know that's not what this thread is about per se, but in General, G is heads and shoulders above the rest, including msn. I don't care how much traffic they generate, or how high my sites are in the serps. As long as I'm high up in G, I'll be high up in Y and msn. I hate anything microsoft, and I especially hate portals. msn will always be crap compared to real search and I don't see the folks over at G resting on thier laurels. When the new G browser comes around, msn will just tank further.

That may be so in your industry, but most of the top 10 sites in Google for my real estate industry dont even rank well in MSN because they use a lot of spammy seo that MSN is filtering out. MSN no matter whether you like Bill or not has the financial strength to do whatever they want to. If Bill wants to be the number 1 search engine he can and there is nothing Google can do without it IMHO.

Search results are not meant to be created for you or me as site owners. They are meant to produce relevant results for the consumer. Google has forgot that and has implimented filters to stop those who wish to manipulate their system and it has caused their serps to produce junk. I also feel this is by plan in google as they have to drive people to their primary income producing adwords to keep their investors happy. I dont know about your industry but for real estate google stinks for relevance.

[Las Vegas Homes]

I analyzed my log files this morning. Not as much of the new traffic is coming from MSN as I thought it was but I am finding that I am ranking very high and getting referrals for keywords I haven't even targeted.

I've also experienced a rapid rise for keywords that I have only very recently targeted. I'm still no where in the SERPs for these keywords in google and yahoo.

We have several real estate sites and looking at the logs we receive a 3 to 1 ratio of traffic from Yahoo and MSn verse google. I have also said this before but our conversion rate is higher in Yahoo and MSN than google as well.

[ephricon]

Anyone noticing a difference so far this week versus last week when the results were mostly live but the new MSN layout was not yet...???

Wondering if a redesign in the layout will have any noticeable effect (+/- 10% of MSN traffic) in general?

[zez]

I've noticed 20% traffic increase today. Looking good....

[Help Desk]

...MSN no matter whether you like Bill or not has the financial strength to do whatever they want to. If Bill wants to be the number 1 search engine he can and there is nothing Google can do without it IMHO.
I agree, it would take a very different and smart company to stay ahead of Microsoft. I challenge anybody to find a company with smarter, more efficient and more enthusiastic employees.

[melefire]

For a while MSN and live were different...